


River's Devoted

by Rineia



Category: Original Work
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-11 16:47:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20549426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rineia/pseuds/Rineia
Summary: And together, we'll cross the river.





	River's Devoted

quiet. I awoke to a conspicuous lack of the typical morning chatter that filled our home, the livestock uncharacteristically silent, and even birdsong was bizarrely absent.

The day had arrived, I knew. I didn't know how I knew, but there wasn't a shred of doubt within my mind.

I hurried as quickly as I could through my morning routine. Face washed, simple dress slipped on over my head, long socks slid up to mid-thigh, long hair brushed enough to banish the idea that I had just rolled out of bed. Joining my family in the kitchen, everyone else was present -- my mother, my father, and both of my younger sisters. None of us spoke a single word; we didn't need to. It was obvious just from the first shared glance with my father that they all felt it just the same as I did: the day had finally arrived.

There was no hurry. Things would happen at the correct time regardless of what we did; we had worked so hard to make this day arrive, and now that it did, things were entirely out of our hands. It felt as though we were being swept away by the inexorable current of a raging, icy river, and there wasn't anything we could do but go along with it and see where we ended up.

Appropriate.

Mother had pulled out all the stops, and the breakfast she soon delivered to the table was a veritable feast. Eggs, bacon, ham, toast, sausage, pancakes. We had to eat our fill -- this was the last meal we would eat in this house, after all.

My younger sisters generally chatted about what games they intended to play, or squabbled over who got unfair treatment or amounts of food, but they both ate in the same silence as the rest of us. There was an energy, still, a restlessness in the face of what was going to happen. We exchanged glances, my family and I. Glances, smiles, knowing looks; even without words, a close family was able to communicate how they felt, and we were no exception. 

After breakfast, we simply abandoned our plates and cups on the table and calmly exited the house, pausing only to strap boots on our feet. Father fetched his walking stick initially, but abandoned it shortly after we set off toward the river's edge. We brought none of our possessions, leaving everything behind other than the clothes on our back and the boots on our feet.

As we wound through the village roads, we joined several other nearby families who had set off at the same time we did. We were neither early nor late, as there was no appointed time, but there were some families at the edge of the river by the time we arrived, and yet more were behind us. It didn't matter -- we wouldn't be proceeding without everyone present. We couldn't.

The river was enormous, everpresent, and the only sound we heard. Just upstream, well within view, it crashed down over a tall ridge. Downstream, it vanished across the plains. It was wide, but not so wide that we couldn't glimpse the opposite shore, which seemed as far as we could tell to be more plains, just like this side. 

Still, every single member of the village of River's Devoted knew it was our destiny, our eventual goal to cross the river.

No one had ever managed it before, though some daring souls had tried. Attempts to swim revealed a current far too strong for a person to manage. Rafts and boats suffered a similar fate, being swept downstream or simply sunk. Everyone knew it was impossible to cross before the appointed time and in the appointed manner, but that didn't stop some fools from making their efforts and meeting their demise. Even those who had struck out along the river to find a smaller and easier place to cross had failed; inevitably, their drowned bodies washed up on the shore, even if they had headed downstream.

Trying to cross was suicide, and moreover, an insult to the river. And yet, here we stood, preparing to do exactly that.

We came to stand at the edge, the roar of the river loud enough to drown out anything we would have said if we had tried, but no one did. There was nothing more to say. Still, I exchanged glances with those next to me -- father on one side, and the older of my younger sisters on the other. We believed, we knew today was the day, but it was hard to banish the memories of those who had tried to cross and died for the gall they showed.

We stood there for nearly an hour as the sun ascended in the clear blue sky; we needed every single person in the village, man, woman, and child. Old and infirm or an infant held in its mother's arm: everyone. Finally, all six hundred of us were strung out in a line at the river's edge, and as one, we took the hands of those next to us. My hand vanished in my father's large, strong grasp, and I held tightly to my sister's. Everyone was doing the same -- even the mothers with infants held one of the child's hands, and those next to them took the child's other. We formed an unbroken chain, united in that moment in our determination.

Unified, we stepped forward.

I didn't even realize I had been holding my breath until I had to let it out in a gasp: the water did not swallow us up, but held firm and clear as though covered in ice. The flow of the water didn't stop, but we stood on it regardless, not even wetting our boots. 

It took quite awhile to cross the river, one united step at a time. We could not release one another's hands, and we waited to ensure even the oldest of us was prepared for the next step before we took it. Step by step, we walked across the river as it raged beneath us. Halfway across, a dared a glance downward: fish swam beneath us, as if curious exactly what we were doing. Father squeezed my hand, as though to remind me of the task at hand. Like I could forget! Still, part of me feared for our safety; it seemed at any moment that we could plummet through the water's surface and die just like the others had.

But it held firm.

The sun was as high in the sky as it could be by the time we stepped on the far shore. It was, as we had surmised, further plains; it looked no different from the land we had abandoned. Yet we knew this was what we had been living for. The villagers of River's Devoted had lived for over two hundred years with the knowledge that one day we would earn the chance to cross the river and claim what we had been promised by the gods themselves, and even if it didn't look like a prize yet, the fact we had been able to cross was sign enough that the gods had not lied.

Once we were on dry land, we finally released hands, and I could not resist one second longer. No one shouted after me as I took off at a run, tearing across the vast, empty plains, leaving my family, the villagers I had known my entire life, and the river that had served as barrier, promise, guardian and wall all at once. 

The noise of the raging river grew softer and softer as I ran, as I sought to see what there was to see. At long last, I could hear the noise no longer. I, like everyone else, had gotten used to that everpresent crash of water throughout my life at its side, but I heard it no longer, the river's hold broken, its roar silent. For the first time in my life, I knew

**Author's Note:**

> A short, abstract piece that popped in my head and wouldn't go away until I wrote it down. I know it's nothing like anything else I've ever written and isn't the sort of thing my few fans might expect; please forgive me for that. I have some more traditional stuff on the horizon, don't worry.


End file.
